Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
Out of this Frame is the latest release from Rachel Taylor-Beales and is also one of our Featured Albums of the Month (reviewed here). One of the songs from the album is Fire Girl, the video for which is premiered below alongside a video that tells the story of fire spinner Steffi Wulf. Both the song and Steffi’s story are incredibly moving – it’s a story of hope and self-belief that equally reflects the intolerance of society and how we don’t all march to the same drumbeat…as Henry David Thoreau said, let them step to the music which they hear, however measured or far away.
Rachel says: “Fire Girl was inspired by meeting fire spinner Steffi Wulf at Beyond the Borders festival in 2021. I’d entered the Circus Tent with my daughter as Citrus Arts Group were running a workshop that afternoon that my daughter was keen to attend. I plonked myself down on a hay bale and began chatting to Steffi who was next to me. I asked how she had got into fire spinning. Tears filled my eyes as Steffi told me about her childhood, growing up being bullied at school and the severe low self-esteem and mental health difficulties she’d suffered as a result. It was when she’d reached university and read the slogan for the circus society ‘Misfits, Outcasts, Weirdos, Welcome!’ she tentatively signed up to join. It was here that Steffi felt she’d found her people, a place where she could be herself and belong. Here she found that working with the incredible element of fire also unleashed the fire within herself. When I returned from the festival Steffi’s story was still playing in my head, and I knew that I wanted to create work in response to what I’d heard. Since suffering from injuries from a serious accident in 2012 that left me with severely limited mobility for a season and needing to rebuild myself. Both mentally and physically, I’ve felt a real resonance with stories of people who find it within themselves to rebuild their lives and reframe their narratives. I was moved and intrigued by the connection that Steffi had made to fire spinning and how working with fire had helped her to deal with issues that she was facing. I soon found myself composing, writing, and painting in response to Steffi’s story.
It was a great privilege to have Steffi and her partner Tom (and their dog Raffin) join us in South Wales to film the Fire Girl video. They travelled down from their home in Liverpool, arriving with a van full of fire props, in time to catch the sun going down at a local beach.
I wanted to give Steffi an opportunity to respond to the song and tell her story more fully in her own words and was thrilled when she agreed to also be filmed for “Steffi’s Story: The Story behind ‘Fire Girl’ video.”
The video was filmed and edited by Hushland Creative.
Steffi’s Story: The Story behind ‘Fire Girl’ video
It’s mythical, political, personal.
Rachel Taylor-Beales
It’s a shout, it’s a whisper, it’s a wail…
Welcome all you misfits, outcasts, and weirdos,
on this last chance parade…
Order ‘Out of this Frame’ via Bandcamp: https://racheltaylor-beales.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-this-frame
Website: https://www.racheltaylor-beales.com/